Gleyber Torres committed his league-leading ninth error by a second baseman on Saturday night, which led to a game-breaking grand slam by Teoscar Hernandez in the eighth inning.
Torres’ defensive struggles have coincided with a slow season at the plate overall, and Gio says it is giving him some subtle flashbacks to another former hyped Yankee prospect that fell off a cliff after two very promising seasons to start his big-league career.
“Gleyber Torres is an interesting conversation. I mean, he's not quite on the Gary Sanchez level…but I'll make the comparison in the sense of he was really, really good at one point and he's never gotten back there,” Gio said. “And there's times that you feel like he's just not locked in more often than not.
“It's as frustrating as hell. Gary Sanchez, there were more defensive issues with him and any time that he was involved in something defensively, you felt like just like a passed ball would be such a huge deal and you have some of that with Gleyber Torres as well.”
Sanchez set rookie records with his home run surge in 2016, and received MVP votes in 2017 before it all came undone starting in 2018. That was Torres’ rookie season in the majors, and the former No. 1 prospect earned All-Star selections in his first two big-league seasons, hit 38 home runs in 2019, and hasn’t been close to his potential since.
“I was surprised that he was on this team starting this year,” Gio said. “I thought this past offseason was a perfect time to trade him.”